The “Planting of the Penny Hedge” is an outdoor ritual in Whitby, North Yorkshire, England, held on Ascension Day. The Planting is based on a medieval legend about a hermit. A recent news item tells us:
The story goes that three men were hunting a wild boar which was believed to have sought refuge with a hermit at Eskdaleside but the three hunters attacked the hermit and killed him.
As punishment for the crime the trio were ordered to build a hedge cut with a penny knife at low tide and if they refused or the hedge failed to withstand three tides and fell down, they would be forced to forfeit their land.
The article does not elaborate on the nature or efficacy of this ritual, probably as unknown to its participants as to those who read this item. URL: http://www.whitbytoday.co.uk/news?articleid=2885245.
The story is nicely summarized on a page of the Whitby-UK Resources website: http://www.whitby-uk.com/cgi-bin/site.nav/whitby.pl?page=pennyhedge.
John Christopher Atkinson, author of an obscure 1894 book entitled “Memorials of Old Whitby: Historical Gleanings from Ancient Whitby Record,” also explains the probable origins of the ritual, adding, however, that on the face of it the ritual is “nonsensical” and a “farcical, objectless ceremony.”